


early hours

by chaoticautumn



Category: South Park
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, kinda fluffy i guess???, kyle gets nightmares fight me on this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 02:51:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18160505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticautumn/pseuds/chaoticautumn
Summary: Kyle woke with a jolt and a panicked yelp, sitting bolt upright in his bed. His eyes flicked around the room wildly as if searching for something preparing to attack him, his chest heaving in short breaths.





	early hours

Kyle woke with a jolt and a panicked yelp, sitting bolt upright in his bed. His eyes flicked around the room wildly as if searching for something preparing to attack him, his chest heaving in short breaths. Once it clicked that nothing was coming to get him in his own bedroom, a broken sob escaped his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will away the familiar prick of tears.

Next to the redhead, his boyfriend was slowly waking up, trying to blink away the bleariness. Eric glanced at the clock on Kyle’s nightstand and made an irritated noise when the bright red light told him it was 3:14 am. He glanced up at Kyle, ready to voice his frustration at being woken up that fucking early in the morning, but stopped at the sight of his boyfriend hunched over, palm pressed to his mouth to try to muffle his sobs. Eric quickly sat up, eyebrows furrowed in concern, any hint of being tired gone. “...Kyle?”

Kyle jumped at the sudden voice and twisted to face Eric, his eyes wide with panic and defensiveness, but looked away as soon as he recognized Eric. Tears gleamed in the moonlight as Kyle tried to suppress the shivers racking through his body, but couldn’t. He pressed his palms to his eyes and another shakey noise managed to leave Kyle’s lips.

Eric leaned forward and gently grabbed Kyle’s hands, pulling them away from his face and holding them in between the two boys. “Woah, hey, Kyle, what’s wrong?” he asked, voice hoarse. Kyle didn’t meet his eyes or reply, just shook his head. “Dude, seriously, what’s wrong with you?” Eric tried again.

“Fucking- nightmares, okay?!” Kyle snapped, ripping his hands from Eric’s grip when Eric recoiled from the sudden harshness. He angrily scrubbed at his damp cheeks with his wrist, hating himself for both the situation and being a dick to his boyfriend.

Eric was quiet for a moment, then shifted forwards again and grabbed Kyle, pulling him into his lap. He gently but firmly held the redhead to his chest, one of his hands making its way up and gently toying with the wild fiery locks. “You’re okay, Kyle,” he murmured. “It’s okay. Whatever’s in your nightmare can’t hurt you in the real world, right?” His voice was a low, strangely comforting tone rarely heard by anyone, one Kyle had only really heard Eric use when talking to his cat.

Kyle slowly forced himself to relax when he realized Eric wasn’t going to try to hurt him. He hated being held like this, like he was some child that needed comforting, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t need the comfort. Kyle relented and curled into Eric’s chest, burrowing into the soft warmth of his boyfriend, trying to hide the tears that came back full force, although he was almost positive Eric had noticed.

Eric continued murmuring in that comforting voice, not caring if Kyle answered or not. Kyle focused on the brunette’s voice, how weird and deep it sounded when his ear was pressed against Eric’s chest. He soon was completely relaxed, exhaustion taking over his body as the adrenaline drained from his system. His last coherent thought was _thank God for boyfriends._

After a few more minutes of whispers that had evolved into gentle humming, Eric yawned and glanced at Kyle’s clock again. Waking up tomorrow was gonna be a pain in the ass, he already knew it. Eric shifted his arms and looked down at Kyle, unsure if he was awake or not. Kyle absolutely wasn’t. The redhead was making gentle snores nearly impossible to replicate while awake, face clean of any fears or stress, the constant knot in his eyebrows gone. And he was drooling on Eric’s shirt. Gross.

Yet Eric still fondly smiled down at him. He loved seeing Kyle free from stress and anxiety, even more now that the sight had been getting rarer and rarer as the school year went on. Eric knew Kyle got nightmares- he’d been getting them for a while. It had honest to god scared the shit out of Eric when Kyle first had one while sleeping near him. Now, Eric had woken up many a night to Kyle’s panicked whimpers and soft calling that would be impossible to hear if there was any other noise. He never knew what they were about, Kyle never told him, but if they were enough to get the Kyle Broflovski scared like that, Eric wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was going on in the redhead’s mind. So he never brought it up in the morning.

But this was the first time Kyle had woken up like that in the middle of the night, so maybe he’d have to start asking questions he didn’t really want to know the answers to.

Eric sighed and glanced down at Kyle, then back at the clock, and decided he was going the fuck back to sleep right now and future him could deal with interrogating a probably-not-very-happy-about-it Kyle.

He slowly laid Kyle back down on the bed and pulled the blankets over him, careful to not jostle the redhead too much in case he woke up, and slipped under the covers next to him. Kyle made a quiet noise when Eric let go of him and Eric turned on his side and draped an arm over Kyle, tucking his other under his head. He sighed heavily, watching his arm rise and fall with Kyle’s rhythmic breathing until he, too, fell into sleep.

Waking up in the early hours of the morning were always frustrating, but he’d do it for the end of time if it meant Kyle would be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> they totally woke up spooning


End file.
